In-Between Empire: Imperial Exceptionalism, Poland, and Colonial Travel Writing

by Raymond Patton

Overview

Exploring how Polish writers positioned themselves as neither colonized nor colonizers, In-Between Empire analyses their literary works on empire during the 19th and 20th centuries to explore how they negotiated their in-between position in the global imperial hierarchy. Leveraging this vantage point, they claimed the unique ability to represent the South to the West, constructing a Polish national identity in conversation with both imperial and anti-imperial currents, and influencing international discourse on colonialism and its legacy.

Written at the nexus of historical and literary studies of imperial and colonial discourse, Patton centres Poland and Eastern Europe in debates that have frequently excluded these perspectives. Showing how these Polish writers attempted to portray anticolonial solidarity with non-European victims of colonialism, yet also employed European colonial tropes, each writer demonstrated a distinctive ability to identify the tensions and flaws of imperialism, whilst simultaneously reconciling those tensions to themselves as 'exceptional Europeans', innocent of colonialism, by alternating between metropolitan and peripheral perspectives. In doing so, they informed transnational discourses and policies on colonialism, decolonization, the Cold War and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350498679
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/28/2026
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Raymond Patton is Associate Professor of History at The City University of New York, USA. His area of expertise is in 20th century global, transnational and East European History, and he is the author of Punk Crisis: The Global Punk Rock Revolution (2018).

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Playing Indian, Becoming Settler: Paul Edmund Strzelecki, Sygurd Wisniowski, and the “Vanishing Indian”
2. A Colonizing Colony? Anxiety and Exceptionalism in the Writing of Helena Janina Pajzderska (Hajota)
3. A Benevolent Agent of Empire: Stefan Szolc-Rogozinski
4. Ferdynand Ossendowski: The Promethean Gothic in Eurasia and Eurafrica
5. The Relational Transformationalism of Ksawery Pruszynski
6. The Colonial Anticolonialism of Ryszard Kapuscinski
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Ranging across more than a century of travel writing, this work provides a wonderful array of insights into the complex 'inbetween' cultural geographies of Polish writers, from identification with native populations, to collective colonial fantasies, to orientalist traditions and Eurasianism. Equally, it brings an impressive array of original thematic arguments to bear, around white fragility, the 'imperial gothic', critiques of masculine imperialism, globetrotting celebrities and socialist 'anti-colonial colonials', in order to explore the ways in which a culture, often peripheralised and subordinated within Europe, has made sense of its place in the world. A rich feast from which to consider the evolving nature of Polish writers' global perspectives and imagination.” —James Mark, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK

From the Publisher